Pages

Instagram

Saturday, February 22, 2014

Life Lately, II

I'm not so creative with post titles. So, here's what I've been up to lately...

School

My course is going well. It's hard to believe that this coming week is the last of "real" classes. After that, we have until the end of March to write and submit a big course paper. I'm still undecided as to what I'll write about. The course is about constitutional change, and the most interesting topic relating to it that we've covered, to me, is the idea that we as societies don't accept governments in place due to purely historical circumstances (talking mostly about monarchy-type things here), but we do accept modern definitions of "the people" (aka: the voting population) without much thought. But should only those essentially grandfathered in be part of "the people?" (With exceptions for those who go about pursuing citizenship in some cases.) Or should we redefine this to include all those subjected or affected by the laws being enforced by the applicable government? To me, it's a pretty interesting question and really, it's not an easy one to approach. But, if I end up tackling it in my final paper, hopefully I'll do it well enough.

Music

A short one, but I am completely obsessed with Lorde's entire Pure Heroine album at the moment. It's been a while since I had an entire album I liked so much -- probably since Foster The People's Torches or Alt-J's An Awesome Wave.

Basically, I'm loving this one. And if you haven't heard it, or just haven't heard all of it, I highly suggest you check it out asap.

Olympics

We've had nearly 24/7 Olympic coverage airing in our home. I really love it all, regardless of sport. I think that anytime I can watch a sport being done at its best, its always enjoyable, regardless of how little I'm able to understand of it. I'd say we really enjoy the figure skating (of course), speed skating, skiing, and snowboarding the most, but really we even love watching a good curling match -- even if we don't understand it because 1) we have no understanding of the sport and 2) the commentary is in Swedish. It's still great.

The best of all? Watching a friend compete! I've known Marissa for a long time, but in the last couple years before we left Boston, we hung out a lot more frequently and skated together on a team at our rink. She's a wonderful friend and one of the hardest working people I've ever met. It's so cliche, but she's one of those people who makes it to the Olympics and you can't help but tell everyone just how much she deserves it and nothing less. I'm so incredibly happy for her. In the team event, she and her partner, Simon, helped the USA earn a bronze medal and in their individual event, they came in 9th in the world. Just awesome! Though, I think my favorite memory of her still stands as the time we saw Les Misérables just after it opened in 2012. She brought a box of tissues, started crying about five minutes in and didn't stop until it ended. I felt like I must have been dead inside compared to the amount she cried and had to stop myself from laughing at how cute it was. This is her and the US team below, just before receiving their bronze medals. She's the short one in the middle, nearly being lifted off the ground:

TV

When I'm out of Olympics to watch for the moment, I've recently discovered and have been watching through Dead Like Me. Even though it's super old, I'd actually never seen an episode before, though I'm pretty sure I've heard the name floating around for years. I'd have never thought to check it out until it was mentioned as being canceled too early (only 2 seasons in) at a party I was at last weekend.

Work

All's been quite well on the work front(s) lately. I'm loving my schedule, though some weeks are more full than most, I'm loving it, and I think it's a large part of the reason why I haven't been writing so often. Ultimately, I've just been enjoying living my life, rather than analyzing and documenting it all.

The days and weeks fly by. I love teaching skating and tutoring, but I especially love the three kids I watch during the week. We've got a good groove down by now, they know what I'll put up with and what I won't. While the four year old struggles with my instituted "no-screens-Wednesday" (nothing with an electronic screen allowed), he's getting better bit by bit. His initial misunderstanding was cute, complaining back, "But I won't scream!" until we explained further that there's a difference between the words "screen" and "scream." This week, it only took him about an hour and a half until he was happily doing some Lego construction with me rather than asking to play Mario.

This week, the kids were intrigued by the chicken quesadillas I mentioned making at home, I gave the list of ingredients to their mom who, to my surprise, bought them that very night. So, we had them the next day and I think they were a hit. Although, it seems that the six year old really wanted a cheese quesadilla with a side of chicken... I noticed the scene to the right was going on when I looked over halfway through the meal, but she went right ahead and ate all the chicken once she was done with the cheesy tortilla.

Upcoming Events & Travels

Next week: Off to Uppsala for the 2014 Nordic Figure Skating Championships. I'll be there working with Svenska Konståkningsförbundet or, as the English-speakers will surely prefer, SkateSweden -- basically, Sweden's national skating association. I'll be doing website updates on the scene, photography, and basically whatever else IT-related they'd like. I've heard this rink is extra cold, so that's a bummer, but hopefully it won't be too bad. (Please, let me have hope...)

Early March: Back to Estonia! I really can't get enough. It'll be a short trip, just Friday to Sunday, but it's not like I won't be back again soon enough.

April: Copenhagen / Malmö, possibly. My husband and I have been hoping to do this one for a while, so I'm thinking April would be the most reasonable time... we just have yet to actually finalize anything.

May: Norway! Anita and I will be headed to Bergen, Norway as spring rolls around and from what I've seen of the town, it should be absolutely gorgeous.